Inane Chatter

Guys, I have more mugs!  Really cute ones!  For reals, see?  My sister loves me.  The bamboo one has a panda in it!

I’m afraid I have a mug problem.  You’ve seen a sampling of my other mugs before, and I just got these three new ones (the floral ones are really good for deliciously sweet coffee on snowy days).  Well, last week I saw more mugs I MUST HAVE.  (Except that I don’t need them.  I just want them.  Really, I don’t know where I would put them.  We’re out of cabinet space.  But really, I want them.  Want is not the same as need, so I won’t get them.  I’ll just drool from afar.  Because I can’t have them.  Even though I want them.  We’re trying to stop accumulating stuff.  Really.  No more new stuff.)

The London mug

I can still admire them, though.  They’re made by Villeroy and Boch, and they’re part of the New Wave Caffe collection (cities of Europe).  There’s one each for London, Paris, Rome, and Berlin, with matching plates, and they’re adorable.

I would only want them if I got rid of all of my other mugs.  Which I will not do.  Why do I have a mug thing?  I don’t really have a shoe thing.  I have a book thing – isn’t that enough?  It’s not like I display my mugs.  …  No, I’m not going to display my mugs.  Back to these particular mugs – they’re not cheap.  Not crazy expensive, but we’re talking $20 a mug (when they’re on sale).  And that’s not including the matching plates or the cool spoons you can see in the picture I took.  So, yeah, maybe we are talking crazy expensive.  They’re MUGS.  I’m not spending $20 (or more) on a mug.  Boom.  Talked myself out of my muglust.

Did you know goats are evil?  It’s their eyes.  Their eyes give them away.

All of that adorable playing and attention-hogging is just a ruse. What adorable playing?  This adorable playing!  (Please bear with me through this 2-minute video.  They really do do some cute things.)

Clearly, I met some goats last weekend.  And fed them and played with them and picked a favorite.  (Baxter, the brown one, is my favorite.  Dad’s favorite is Bruiser (black with blue eyes).  Trixie wasn’t all that interested in us.)

Baxter: “Whatcha doin’?” Or possibly, “My plan to take over the world begins with you. Look into my eyes so I can take over your brain.”

Sorry about yesterday.  This week was kind of odd.  Busy odd.  Like, I can’t remember sitting down and relaxing much odd, even though I know I must have.  My brain needs lots of help to get out of work-mode, which is why I’ve been relying on other websites so much.  Today will be no different.  Thanks to Tom and Lorenzo, let’s talk about Channing Tatum.

I like him okay (I’ve seen him in one movie and a couple of interviews, and he was plenty likeable), but I don’t find him attractive at all.  Certainly not HAWT, like so many other women seem to feel.  I think it’s his head.  And neck.  The combination of the two.  They’re thesame size.  I have the same issue with The Rock and Vin Diesel.  It’s a type, and it’s not mine.  Channing Tatum, at least in this suit, looks great if you only look from the shoulders down.

I still think he’s a little too body-builder for me.  I’m sure John will be relieved to know I’m not going to leave him for Channing Tatum.

THIS is a really good idea.  I think I’m going to do it (on my personal cell, anyway), and I think Mom shoulddefinitely do it.  Anyone who never listens to their voicemail (which is everyone*) should do it.  It’s not as rude as never listening and never calling anyone back because you never listened to the message.  So go, change your message, and come back.  Go on.  I’ll wait.

…

Welcome back!

I could live here (link goes to more pictures):

Or here:

I forget about this blog for months at a time, but that means I have lots of content to drool over when I remember.  Our house could look something like this if we threw out 75% of what we have.  And painted everything white.  And had better taste.  And more money.

*Exception: if you’re job-hunting, DON’T DO THIS.  But then, if you’re job-hunting, you don’t belong to this group.  You’re probably listening to your voicemail messages.

I may have a new crush.  I’ve never seen him in anything, so it’s possible he’s irritating as hell, but MAN he’s pretty.  And he looks GOOD in that suit.

Thank you, Tom and Lorenzo.  Go here for more pictures and not a whole lot of commentary on his outfit, in this case.

Here’s the aftermath of New Year’s Eve:

Yup.  We’re party animals.  We even went out to eat on our anniversary.  The actual day!  Can you believe it?

Portrait of the couple on their 12th anniversary

(Yes, that is my Hogwarts scarf.  Yes, we were about to go out to dinner to a fancy(ish) restaurant.  Yes, I wear my nerd regalia out into the world.  Oh, did I tell you I got a compliment on my TARDIS hat?  It was from a girl who works at Advance Auto.  Whovians are everywhere.)

I realize I’ve posted nothing but negative things these last few days, and I’d hate for you to think I didn’t enjoy myself.  I totally did.  Molly and I got our nails done on Sunday, and Tom and I lost to Molly and Tania (by a whisker) and John and Emily (by a lot) at Taboo on Christmas Day.  John and I kicked everyone’s butts (especially Emily and Sean’s) at Cranium on Saturday night.  Christmas itself was a very fun day, as usual.  Molly got me possibly my favorite present of the year.  I am now the proud owner of a TARDIS hat.

Also, I have a flashing Rudolph nose, but I only wear it on special occasions.

I love the George Washington Memorial Parkway.  There.  It’s like a load has been lifted from my shoulders.  Yes, it’s a road, a HIGHway even, but I don’t care.  I love it.  Particularly the stretch between the Beltway and the Roosevelt Bridge.  (It’s like the Merritt Parkway in Connecticut, but better because you can see the Potomac River on one side.)  I would love it even more if it were a country road, two quiet lanes instead of four busy ones, but I guess I can’t have everything.   I love it in the summer when all the trees are leafed out and they meet overhead and the sunlight is filtered through the leaves before it gets to the road, and I love it in the fall when all the leaves change color.  I found out this morning that I even love it after the leaves have fallen.  The trees were shrouded in fog this morning, and with the branches peeking through – it was really nice.  By the time I crossed the bridge, the fog had burned off downriver, and the sun was coming up over the monuments (always a beautiful sight), but upriver it was still foggy, like really foggy, and all I could see was the top of the National Cathedral.  I wanted to pull over to take a picture, but there’s no place to do that on that bridge, and I wasn’t in the mood to get killed this morning.  Instead, here are some pictures I’ve taken from the GW Parkway on other (sunnier) mornings.  I solemnly swear I was at a complete stop when I took these pictures.

See all those brake lights? NO ONE was moving.

The river’s so pretty.

What do you do with one diamond earring?  Sounds rhetorical, but I really need an answer.  John bought me a pair (little diamond studs) last Christmas, and I love them.  They’re exactly what I wanted, and I wore them every day, with everything.  Then, out at dinner the evening after we spent the day at the Maryland Renaissance Festival (more on that later), I reached up to my earlobes and noticed that one of them was bare.  How do you lose just one earring?  Clearly, it’s not that hard.  And since the earring wasn’t in my immediate vicinity in the restaurant, and it wasn’t in the car, it was most likely lost on the ground in 16th century England (otherwise known as some woods not too far from Annapolis).  Maybe I can get my remaining earring turned into a necklace or something.

Guess who we ran into while we were there?

We don’t know what Captain America was doing at a 16th century renaissance festival, but his was the best costume we saw all day.  Other than the Doctor’s, of course.  His being there made more sense, what with all the wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff (speaking of that, I totally want these).  I wasn’t able to get a picture of him, but his costume was fantastic.

I’m exhausted from last weekend.  May I have another?  I promise to rest for much of it.  No?  Too bad.

Friday night we went to a costume party.  We were pretty happy with our costumes, but the party was a little awkward at the start.  It got better, and we had a good time.  All that’s minor.  Let’s stick with the important stuff.  For the most part, our costumes were created from things we had at home.  John went as Wolverine.  We had to buy his claws (would you believe we didn’t have a spare set at home already?), but that’s it. 

John realized that I had everything I needed to be Hermione except the wand.  I’d forgotten about the scarf I bought at Universal over the summer.

Not crazy about my hair here. I left in braids all day to get that kinda curly messy younger Hermione look, but I think it came out a little too much like Weird Al.

Classic Hermione pose coming up.  I know!  I know!

Notice I’m holding a wand?  Yup.  That’s ’cause John made me one.  An awesome one.  Because he’s wonderful.

Check it out!  He even burned the Deathly Hallows into the end.  Because he’s the best.

Now, I think our costumes turned out pretty good, but my first choices for us were Dr. Horrible (me) and Captain Hammer (John).  Unfortunately, we don’t have ANYthing we need for those, and we didn’t have enough prep time to get them.  Maybe next year.  I really want to be Dr. Horrible.

I found my boots!  And I’m never shopping again.  Seriously, I am all shopped out.  So back to yesterday’s trip to the Waterford Fair:

Pop quiz, Jess: What kind of chickens are these?

All I know is they were cute and fluffy and not at all phased by the crowds of people streaming by.  This sheep wasn’t particularly bothered by people or dogs, now that I think about it.  I guess the people of Waterford socialize their livestock.

Frosty the Puppy was terrified of the big bad sheep.  They eventually went nose to nose, but then the puppy ran away.

It was cute.  Because puppies.  Also cute?  Ducks getting into water for the first time ever.

My friend Stephanie and I spent FIVE HOURS outlet shopping today.  We tried on all the clothes at the Ann Taylor and Banana Republic Factory Stores and bought half of them, and then we visited every single shoe outlet there.  Struck out on shoes, though.  I’ve lost track of what I’m looking for, except for a pair of black pumps that I can wear with anything for work and a pair of boots.  I didn’t find anything remotely like the boots I want.  I’ve been noticing people wearing them, but I don’t know where they’re from.  I’ll be heading to DSW again soon.  I checked Zappos and they’ve got what I’m looking for.  I’d just like to try some styles on before I order.

I’m looking for something like these:

Type Z Mamie

Lucky Brand May

Romantic Soles Brooke (Wide Calf)

Gabriella Rocha Abbey

Enzo Angiolini Visco

They’re casual, something I wouldn’t be afraid to really wear (I don’t want to have to worry about scuffing them, so I want boots that can take it), looks good with jeans…  I love boots.  Before I buy anything else, though, I’m going to clean out my closet.  For real.  I wear the boots I have, so they can stay, but most of my other shoes will go.  I mean it.  Clothes, too.  I’ll be ruthless.

Background: Yesterday evening, I got up to make some tea.  (Good background, right?  I mean, that really sets the scene for you, doesn’t it?)

Me, to John: What size mug?

John: Mexican.

Let me explain.  We don’t do sizes the normal way when it comes to mugs.  Oh, no.  Small, medium, large, tall, grande, venti – those are not descriptive enough. Here’s a selection of the mugs we use most often:

• In the front row, from left to right, we have littlest and little – these match our dishes.  We’ve had them since we got married.
• In the middle row, also from left to right, the answer to the mug size question is college (the last remaining dishware from our college years – I think the rest of those dishes went to Tom after we graduated), Jess’s (no one uses those but her), Mexican (we bought them  in Mexico, I swear), and big Mexican (same as the others, but bigger)
• And in the back row, we have the more obvious self-explanatory descriptions: Superman, Beatles, Mad Hatter

We have entirely too many mugs.  Okay, now I need to know how many.  Hang on.

You can let go now.  41.  We have 41 mugs, not counting travel mugs.  And how many people live here?  Yeah.  TWO.  Ridiculous.

I think someone cheated and skipped a few days in September.  It went by awfully fast.  What I remember of it was nice, though.  Especially last weekend.  The weather was perfect, and we spent the majority of those two days outside painting the porch.  Not normally my favorite thing to do, but we had a good time.  (Let me tell you a secret: I like spending entire days with John, just us.  It’s fun.  Shh.  Don’t tell anyone.)  We finished the second coat yesterday, and I went for a long bike ride, and now my butt is sore.  I can’t decide if I want to keep doing that.  If I do, I think I might need to invest in those padded bike shorts.  Just checked – those can be kind of expensive.  Also, they look kind of ridiculous.  But not as ridiculous as I look when my butt hurts.

On to the opposite of ridiculous:

I WANT THIS DRESS.  (Thank you, Tom and Lorenzo, for giving me a style goal.)

Not the shoes.  I don’t like the shoes.  (I totally just spelled shoes “shoose”.)  The dress has a Grace Kelly-esque silhouette and have I mentioned how much I want to dress like Grace Kelly?

Of course, I all too often have paint in my hair (all too often = every time I paint something), so I shouldn’t really be allowed near nice clothes.

Oh, how I want this dress.

(More pictures.)

And I want to be a princess.  And I want a pony.  And world peace.  I can’t have any of that, but I can have funny cat videos. It’s one of my inalienable rights as an internet user.

Also, if you have 4 minutes to spare, watch this. Jimmy Steward wrote a poem, and I cried.

I went most of the day thinking I’d already posted something today.  Yeah…no.  An update to the post from two days ago does not count.  But ZOMG this totally does:

I need one of these.  (From Reddit because Reddit.)

Purses collect trash.  All kinds of junk.  And I only carry mine to and from work.  I can’t imagine what it might look like if I carried it everywhere I went.  I cleaned out my purse Sunday afternoon.  Receipts accounted for most of the crap I pulled out of its three compartments, but there were a bunch of random business cards and a couple of (smashed) granola bars in there, too.  Judging by the dates on some of the receipts, the last time I cleaned out my purse was about a year and a half ago.  I have no idea how long the granola bars were in there.

This is a picture of the bag of trash I filled.  The apple is next to it for perspective.  I emptied my purse out completely, vacuumed it out, and only put the essentials back in.  My bag is a couple pounds lighter today.  My shoulders thank me.  Now if only I could convince work to get me a lighter laptop.  That’s the bag that’s going to turn me into a hunchback.  I guess I could get a wheelie laptop bag…

Update: I think that bag of trash might be bigger than my purse.  How is that possible?  Wait – could my purse be bigger on the inside?  Just did a quick search, and oh my god, I want this.  Or maybe this.  But probably the first one.  While I’m at it, I also want these, and one of these.  Etsy is cool.

Update x2: By popular demand, here is a picture of my purse with the same apple next to it.  I think that might be a small apple, because my purse looks huge next to it.  It’s really not that big.  It’s divided into three equal compartments, and all the trash was in two of them.

I went for a long-ass bike ride this evening and hey, ass was a good word to bring up because mine is not happy with me.  My wrists, shoulders, and upper back aren’t too pleased, either.  I’m thinking long-ass (almost 13 miles) may have been a little ambitious for me, since this is not my sport.  Also, my bike doesn’t look anything like the bikes serious cyclists ride.  And there are a LOT of those around here.  We’ll just see if I can walk tomorrow.  Oh, and I have a headache.  I think I should just go to bed.

A model that Lance Armstrong rode at some point

My little Schwinn that I bought at Target. Not in the same league.  But I love it and I want a headlight and a basket.

John and I did some yardwork yesterday (mowing, weeding, clipping back the creeping vines, etc.) – it’s a good thing we did it yesterday morning, too, since the rest of the weekend was rainy – and we noticed a wee visitor in the yard.  Say hello to Mr. Toad.

At least, we think he’s a toad.  Pretty sure he’s a toad.  John nearly hit him with the lawn mower, and even then the little dude didn’t move.  He was hanging out under a tree.  He eventually hopped over to the mulch near the fence.  Riley barely noticed he was there.  Can’t blame him for that, really.  In the mulch and the dead leaves, Mr. Toad was nearly invisible.

When we finally finished up and went inside, he was snuggled up underneath the leaves right there by the fencepost, showing no signs of heading out.  I’m not sure where he would have gone.  Don’t toads need moisture, like near a pond or a swamp?  I wouldn’t have thought our backyard was his ideal habitat.  I know Google and Wikipedia could help me out here, but toads creep me out a little and I don’t really want to know that toads are happiest when they’re living under my bed or something.  I only like them when they go on wild rides and sing.  Speaking of Disney, did you know Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride in Fantasyland was replaced by a Winnie the Pooh ride?  Looks like it still exists in Disneyland, but not Disney World.  Sad.

Noticed yesterday on Reddit:

On my way home today I saw a little boy run out of his house, open up his blue and red Spiderman umbrella, and then skip and jump down the sidewalk.  It was a beautiful sunny day.  Since an umbrella was clearly not needed, I can only assume he was trying to fly Mary Poppins-style.